Many different types of applications exist for managing projects. In some project management software applications, certain numerical attributes for a task associated with a project may be visually (pictorially) displayed in a non-numeric form (e.g., in a color-coded format) to a task planner or project manager (i.e., a user), and some may not be visually displayed in such a manner. For example, there may be several numerical attributes for a task, which are useful for a user to know, but which are usually not depicted visually. Instead, the values of such numerical attributes may simply be listed in numerical form. Just by seeing the numerical values for these attributes of different tasks, it may be very difficult for the user to perceive the nature, intensity, and veracity of the situation or context. It may be even more difficult for the user to correlate the visually depicted information with the numerically listed information.
For example, in one situation related to a project plan, a few high impact and high risk tasks may be getting delayed, and the finish deadline for these tasks may be getting close. In present day task/project management views, a user may visually simply understand that few tasks are getting delayed for which the finish-by dates are close. But the fact that many of these delayed tasks are also of high impact and high risk may be difficult for the user to correlate to the visually depicted information.
Alternate views may exist, where an additional attribute is depicted on a task bar as either color, shades of grey, a shading pattern, or a thickness/line-pattern of a border, etc. However, this kind of depiction is quantized at best, interpretation dependent (where a legend may be provided to indicate correspondence), and is severely limited in providing a visual “feel” of the matter. In other alternate views, such additional attributes may be written in numerals at pre-defined spaces on or adjacent to the task bar (e.g., at top-right hand corner, or at bottom center, etc.) on the task management view. In such cases, even though the information is available on the view, the information is numerically interpretation dependent and is devoid of the visual “feel”.